A/N I'm so sorry I didn't get to update any sooner! The dance season is in full swing again and I'm just having so much practice that I hardly had any time to write and the few moments I had in was either too tired or didn't have any inspiration left... guess all of that inspiration went into my dancing the last couple of weeks. But here it is at last! It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to, but at least it's there. So I hope it's not too bad and you can still enjoy it.

I don't own anything other than my OC.

Chapter 11

Taking Potions lessons with Professor Slughorn was... a nightmare. It wasn't that the man was incompetent, because he was obviously very skilled in his field, but he wasn't very interested in teaching as far as Luenda could tell. After a few initial questions on the draft of peace, which he said was likely to come up in their O.W.L. he started talking about famous ex-students of his. Not liking the subject of the class most students encouraged him to keep talking so that by the end of the lesson they had learned absolutely nothing.

Care of Magical Creatures wasn't any fun anymore either. Hagrid was still an oaf and now she didn't even have Luna for company anymore. Even worse than simply not having her as a friend anymore was that she was still avoiding like the plague and when they were forced to be in close proximity of one another, like in shared classes, kept throwing dirty looks Luanda's way. Luenda tried to ignore this, but although she kept her face carefully blank every time she noticed this, wanted nothing more than to cry over it.

The loss of her friend had been bearable over the summer because she had been kept so busy, but now it was like being doused in ice water all of a sudden. She just wished she could make it up to Luna, but knew she couldn't. After all she hadn't really done anything wrong, she simply liked someone that Luna didn't. In fact Luenda had a strong suspicion that Luna wouldn't approve of her liking of someone else she'd met recently either... and so Care of Magical Creatures crept by ever so slowly.

Exhausted Luenda crawled into bed that Friday evening, only just remembering she was supposed to teach those three seventh years about nonverbal spells tomorrow morning. She groaned inwardly, wondering how best to explain the subject. The more she had done it the more she had realised what her mum had always meant when she told her that magic wasn't about incantations, it was about intentions. Incantations were only there to help. Luenda snorted at that thought, she couldn't honestly agree that incantations were helpful in any way. They just offered a lot of time waste to study and perfect them. Honestly, magic had been getting so much easier since she had learned to feel it rather than thinking up the correct words, which she wasn't any good at anyway.

Then it suddenly hit her. That was it! She had to teach them how to feel their magic and everything else would come of its own accord! Surely every pureblood would be able to do that, magic has been in our blood for centuries for a reason after all.

Saturday morning dawned and she took her three fellow Slytherins with her to the unused classroom she had claimed last year. It looked exactly how it had done when she left it, except perhaps a little dusty from lack of use and no cleaning over the summer. With a pang she thought of how she has first started using this room with Luna to help her with potions.

"Wow, how did you know about this room?" Viviane said in awed tones.

"Stumbled across it" Luenda mumbled untruthfully, in fact she and Luna had deliberately searched for a room in a remote corner of the school to get away from the prying eye of Umbridge last year and this room had been absolutely perfect.

Luenda pointed at some chairs at one of the tables for them to sit down and started to explain all about feeling the magic swirl inside you and focusing on what you wanted to happen instead of the words. She also advised them to keep it simple for now, because it was their first attempt. Harder spells would definitely be possible, but only with time and practice. There was a reason you started out learning only simple spells at first and it didn't have anything to do with magical power, because you're born with that. It just lays dormant inside of you until you become practiced enough to tap into that power.

When they left for lunch Luenda was not at all surprised that none of them had been making any progress, she hadn't expected them to either. Sensing your magic at first was a lot harder than it sounded after all, because it was the complete opposite of what you were taught here at Hogwarts, as she had experienced last year. Viviane was disgruntled about her lack of progress and muttered something that sounded like "Waste of time, could have spent my time actually learning this shit."

Luenda decided to spend the rest of her weekend relaxing a little. She wrote a letter to Bellatrix about her first week back, only to realise that all post was being checked, so a letter to a known Death Eater would never make it out of the castle. Not to mention that it would give Bellatrix' location away to the ministry, which was about the last thing she wanted. With a sigh she had resigned to put the letter in her trunk, she would keep writing though, she'd just have to find another way of getting the letters to Bellatrix and if she really couldn't find a way she'd give them to her over the Christmas holidays.

A note with a silly pink ribbon arrived during her second week back. Confused Luenda opened it.

I, Professor H. Slughorn would like to invite you to a dinner party this Friday evening around 7 in my office. Please let me know if the time and date are convenient to you.

Best regards,

H. Slughorn

Luenda's first instinct told her to simply toss the note into the fire, but upon reflection decided it couldn't hurt to check it out. She could always walk back out or revoke any possible future invitations if she didn't like it.

When she entered Slughorn's office that Friday after struggling through another abysmal week she noticed it looked larger than the regular teacher's office. A couple of other students were already seated there, some of which she recognised because they were fellow Slytherins, but most looked foreign to her. Luenda stood in the doorway for a moment, unsure of where to sit. Ginny Weasley was there and though she didn't have anything against the girl personally she had the feeling the girl didn't particularly like her, whether because of her house or because she beat her so easily during Defence the previous week she wasn't sure, probably a bit of both she thought. Close to Ginny was a girl from Draco's year she was pretty sure was called Hermione Granger and was friendly with Harry Potter, she also understood the girl was a muggle-born. Definitely not there then Luenda decided, Bellatrix would kill her if she ever got close to a muggle-born and she held no desire to sit next to someone who was close to Harry Potter, the boy who basically send Lucius to Azkaban last year and absolutely ruined her friendship with Luna. Then there was Blaise Zabini, a good looking guy, who was also a year ahead of her and sorted into Slytherin. So she could at least be sure it was okay to sit next to him, except that she didn't like Blaise at all because he was so full of himself. In the end she sat down between a Gryffindor boy she didn't know and another fellow Slytherin boy whom she recognised, but didn't know the name of.

Over dinner, which was excellent, Slughorn introduced everyone present to each other and asked a couple of questions. Luenda listened and noticed everyone there was either related to someone famous or were talented in some way or another. Luenda wondered briefly how Hermione and Ginny had ended up there. She supposed Ginny had fair duelling skills, but Hermione? What was that girl actually good at? After just listening to her this one time Luenda already realised she was a waste of time unless you were interested in muggles, which she most certainly was not. Not that she had anything against muggles, but she didn't care for them either. At last Slughorn turned his attention on her and she felt slightly nervous.

"Miss Sarkany, you have already shown great skill at potion making during my classes and Professor Snape tells me you're not a bad duellist either." Slughorn spoke fondly. "But word also has it you only came here last year, so that begs the question where you were taught before and by whom?"

"My mum home-schooled me, I've also had help from some other people, but I'd rather not get into that." Luenda responded.

"Home-schooled?" Slughorn asked, "Well your mother certainly seems to have taught you well then. But rumour has it she died last year. It was a bit of a tragedy was it not?" he said as though they were talking about the weather.

Luenda nodded, not liking his casual tone at all.

Slughorn looked at her. He must have realised her resentment towards him, because he didn't ask her about anything else and moved on to the Gryffindor boy next to her. His name turned out to be Cormac Mclaggen and he had no trouble boasting about his connections with several high ranked people within the wizarding world and telling everyone what a great keeper he was. Luenda decided that if she was ever invited to something like this again and stupid enough to accept she would stay as far away from this boy as she possibly could.

Several weeks later Luenda had been stupid enough to accept more of Slughorn's invitations, even though she hated them. At least she got to meet interesting people as the Professor often brought and introduced some old students of his that were now famous. It was also an easy way for Luenda to make it appear as though she had 'friends', even though she couldn't truthfully say she cared about any of the other members there. She also missed her Sunday remedial potions dearly, teaching non-verbal magic to three seventh years, one of whom totally hated her for God knows what, was just not the same. Luna was still avoiding her and Luenda flatly refused to talk to the girls in her dorm any more then absolutely necessary. Added to the fact that she still hadn't managed to think of a way to send her now considerable stack of letters to Bellatrix Luenda felt life at Hogwarts had now reached an all time low.

Luenda wasn't the only one who seemed lonely and downcast lately though. She had noticed Draco had lost a lot of the swagger he had had at the start of term as well. He could often be seen brooding over something Luenda didn't know about or he would simply vanish for hours at a time. He also seemed more on edge than he usually was. Luenda wondered what job the Dark Lord had him do that caused this behaviour in Draco, it was highly unusual for him to hide himself away like that. Even more unusual was that he hardly ever spoke a word about Potter anymore. Not that Luenda minded him shutting up about the other boy. If anything it was a bit of a relief to her. She watched him for a while.

"What do you want?" Draco asked annoyed when he noticed this.

Luenda quirked an eyebrow.

"Quit staring at me." He snapped finally.

"Since when do you mind being looked at?" Luenda asked innocently.

"You're insufferable, you know that?" Draco huffed.

"And you're suffering." Luenda answered simply.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked surprised.

"It means something's wrong with you Draco." She replied rolling her eyes. "What does He have you do?"

"That's none of your business." The snappishness back in his voice.

"Fair enough. Why does it worry you?"

"Just because, okay?!"

"No it's not okay Draco. You're 16, your father is imprisoned and you look worse with every day passing. Tell me what's wrong right now." She said in a tone that allowed no room for argument.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?!" Draco replied angrily; "You're a year younger than me and you don't look too happy yourself. You can't tell me what to do!"

"Fine, how about I write Bellatrix about you talking that way to me?" she asked him sweetly.

"You can't. All manners of communication in and out of the castle are being watched." Draco hissed.

"Maybe I've found a way around that." Luenda replied haughtily.

Draco stared at her for a moment. "Fine," he said eventually, "but you have to promise not to say a word to anyone about it."

Luenda nodded and remained silent while Draco told he about his mission and how the Dark Lord had promised to get Lucius out of Azkaban if he succeeded. How He had told him he was chosen for an important mission and that he should feel proud. That he really was proud, but that things weren't going as he had expected and that he was scared because of it. Scared of what the Dark Lord would do to him and his mother if he failed.